Spent some more time this afternoon looking at Godley's batted ball data and just can't help but be impressed with what he has done this year. While it is definitely still a small sample size some things really stand out.
Ground Ball Percentage(Starting Pitchers Minimum 25IP)
1) Luis Perdomo: 69%
2) Dallas Keuchel: 67.1%
3) Alex Wood: 67.0%
4) Zack Godley: 65.1%
5) Kyle Freeland: 62.8%
6) Marcus Stroman: 61.3%
7) Lance Mccullers: 60.5%
8) Trevor Cahill: 60.2%
9) Robert Gsellman: 58.4
10) Clayton Richard: 57.7%
Pretty impressive company on that list, plus he has seen an increase in this ground ball percentage each and every year in the majors
2015: 45.7%
2016: 53.8%
2017: 65.1%
Going a little further into batted ball data, not only has he been creating more ground balls this year, but the exit velocity off the bat has decreased each year as well.
2015
Soft%:13.5% Med%:56.3% Hard%:30.2%
2016
Soft%:17.9% Med%:50.0% Hard%:32.1%
2017
Soft%:18.8% Med%:52.2% Hard%:29.0%
Now obviously since he has made so few starts I was curious if there was anything pitch related that has changed to indicate that this could be a sign of things to come vs just an aberration due to a small sample size.
4 Seam Fastball: No significant difference in velocity or movement, it has always sat between 91mph and 92mph with a hMOV around -5 and a vMov around 8.5. His usage of the pitch dropped significantly between 2015 and 2016 but is very similar so far this year. Overall though this is never going to be one of Godley's stronger pitches and is good if he can keep it around the 12-13% usage he is at
Sinker: This has been a very successful pitch for Godley in the majors and has seen a corresponding rise in usage from 22.1% in 2015 to 25.5% in 2016 to 43.9% this year. The pitch itself has changed a bit over the years as it has added slightly more HMov and slightly more vMOV. This pitch has obviously been a significant contributor to his ground ball rate with a 16.99% ground ball rate and only a 1.96% flyball rate this year. The big difference that this pitch has seen this year is his ability to more consistently keep it in the strike zone as previous years have seen this pitch being a ball more that 45% of the time while this year he is sitting in the mid 30s with that percentage being significantly brought up by his one outing against the Mets where he struggled a bit with control.
Cutter: This was one of Godley's go to pitches when he first came up throwing it about 40% in his and second year, however this year not only is it down to 18.67% usage the movement on the pitch has changed significantly from where pitchFx had no trouble labeling them to where now at times his cutter is being labeled a slider. This pitch's decrease in usage and change in movement is for good reason as prior to this year it had the highest HR%, FB% and was in the top 3 LD% with his 4seam and sinker. Using this pitch in much more moderation this year though has worked and seen one of the stronger whiff% at 15.07%
Curve: With the cutter seeing reduced use some pitch had to see a significant increase, and Godley's curve has been a very pleasant surprise this year. This pitch was at the very backend of his repetoire in his first year at 9.7% usage, up to 25.2% last year, and finally this year up to 33.1%. This pitch has seen an uptick in velocity up 3mph since 2015 and 2mph since last year. On top of that control is up with only 31.62% of curves being balls and an impressive 25.64% whiffs.
Changeup: Nothing really to say here, the pitch has been consistently used around 10% of the time with similar velocity, movement, and outcome. Definitely not one of the stronger pitches he has, but one he has definitely shown he can pull out for success when the situation calls for it.
TLDR Summary: While Godley's success and ground ball rate may not remain as high as it has, as long as he can continue his improved control with his sinker and keep rolling with his greatly improved curveball there is reason to believe he will stay up there with the top in the league in terms of groundball rate and remain a successful back end rotation arm with potential to potentially grow into a good middle of the rotation starter. The big thing to watch will be whether or not the game against the Mets where he fell back onto his cutter and had trouble controlling it to the tune of 5 walks is something that happens frequently or was just a one-off game
